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Abstract
The incidence of cutaneous melanoma has continued to rise in the US at the alarming rate of 3% per year for the past two decades, making it the fastest growing malignancy. At present, there are no systemic agents available that significantly extend the lifespan of patients with advanced disease, and the key to improved survival in all affected individuals remains early diagnosis and treatment. The existence of an accurate, simple, objective, non-invasive screening, and diagnostic tool would therefore be invaluable for the early detection of malignant melanoma in a variety of clinical settings.
With technology advances in thermal cameras, there is a growing interest in the application of infrared imaging techniques in identification of subsurface structures. Identification is based on the following principle: when a cold stimulus is applied to surface, variations in the thermal properties of a structure located underneath the surface result in identifiable temperature contours on the surface itself. These contours are characteristic of the structure's shape, depth, and its thermal properties. We hypothesize that malignant pigmented lesions with increased proliferative potential generate quantifiable amounts of heat and possess an ability to reheat more quickly than surrounding normal skin, thereby creating a marker of melanoma lesions (vs. non-proliferative nevi). The ultimate goal of this thesis is therefore to design a novel thermal analysis and measurement system for distinguishing cancer from benign look-alike dysplastic nevi as well as for providing key information on lesion staging.
